Five keys to the ALCS

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- On the chance that you are still having difficulty taking the Tampa Bay Rays for real, here are some things to consider:

The Rays won more games than the Red Sox. They hit more home runs and stole more bases. The Rays' starters and relievers had ERAs better than those of their Sox counterparts and the teams played extremely similar schedules.

"Really good," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said yesterday when asked how he would describe a Tampa Bay team that edged Boston during the regular season series, 10-8. "We've played them, I think, 18 games. And we saw firsthand why they had so much success."

Can these Rays be beaten?

Of course.

But it won’t be easy.

Here are five keys for the Sox to succeed:

5. Find a hole.
From top to bottom, the Rays have shown they can pretty much do it all. Here’s as good an indication as any: Despite a young starting rotation and a young catcher -- is it redundant to call the Rays young? -- they allowed fewer steals than all but four teams in the AL. Many inexperienced pitchers and catchers have trouble holding runners and defending against run, but not the Rays.

Remember: The Red Sox lost four of six to Tampa in September and the Rays effectively played those games without Evan Longoria, B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford. All three are back in the Tampa lineup and provide the Rays with good depth through the middle of the order. Former No. 1 pick Upton homered three times in the ALDS after hitting just nine during the regular season, but his performance against the White Sox wasn’t a fluke. He hit 24 last year and has the talent to be a perennial 30-30 player.

The Rays are young, talented, hungry, and tough. We learned the latter when they stood up to the Sox early in the season, James Shields drilling Coco Crisp with a fastball that triggered a bench-clearing brawl.

The point: In winning 97 games in the regular season and wiping out the White Sox in four games in the ALDS, the Rays have rarely shown a flaw this season. It's imperative that the Red Sox discover one, and then exploit it.

4. Start strong.
Elementary, right? In much the same way that the Sox needed to rely on their starters in the Los Angeles series, the same holds true against Tampa Bay. If Boston has any advantage right now, it probably comes in the first five or six innings, when the starters are in the game. Tampa has the kind of bullpen the Red Sox had last year, which is to say that the Rays are extremely efficient when it comes to protecting leads after the sixth inning.

Of course, all of this presumes the health of Josh Beckett, whose performance in Game 3 of the ALDS was worrisome. Francona recently said Beckett was affected by "rustiness," but we cannot help but wonder if his oblique injury is more of a hindrance than the club is letting on. If Beckett hits his stride and Jon Lester continues to dominate, the momentum in this series could shift considerably.

Regarding the rotation, can everyone stop being so foolish? No matter how well Lester pitches in this series, the Red Sox still have to win two games started by someone else.

3. Don’t slip up.
For all of the talent they possess, the Rays have been nothing if not opportunistic. During the ALDS and the regular season, the Rays took advantage of every chance opponents gave them. They have the speed and power to exploit mistakes, which means teams need to pitch them carefully and avoid giving away outs. This is especially true given the efficiency with which the Rays prevented runs this year. Only the Toronto Blue Jays allowed fewer among AL teams.

During the ALDS, the Red Sox made one error -- shortstop Jed Lowrie’s muff in Game 1. After that, the Sox played flawless defense against the Angels. Meanwhile, Tampa was turning in an even better performance against Chicago, playing the four-game series without committing an error or, consequently, allowing an unearned run.

In many ways, the Rays are a baseball prototype. They have exceptional pitching and defense. They have power at the corners and speed up the middle. And they don’t make many mistakes.

2. Don’t cave in the middle.
Funny, isn’t it? Tampa has budding superstars in Upton and Longoria, among others, and yet the keys to this series may be middle relievers Grant Balfour and J.P. Howell, the latter of whom is lefthanded. During the regular season, Howell, Balfour, Dan Wheeler, and Troy Percival each held opponents to a batting average of .194 or lower, a big reason for the team’s overall success.

Once Percival was injured (again) late in the year -- he is not the ALCS roster -- Wheeler moved into the closer’s role and the Tampa bullpen shortened some. This left a small hole in the middle of the game -- the fifth or sixth innings -- depending on the performance of Rays starters and other relievers, like Edwin Jackson (a starter during the regular season) or phenom David Price.

What that means, in all probability, is that Howell and Balfour (not necessarily) will pitch the seventh and eighth most nights. All year, both have been virtually untouchable. Red Sox pitchers need to match Howell and Balfour, playing them to a draw when either is in the game. That would allow the Sox to match up rotations and closers, the latter of which would allow Francona to maximize Jonathan Papelbon, as he did in pivotal Game 2 of the ALDS.

1. No napping from 2 to 4.
Let’s be honest: If the Red Sox are going to win this series, they need more out of Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz, and, to a lesser extent, Kevin Youkilis. In Youkilis’s case, his totals in the ALDS (a .222 average, one RBI) were somewhat misleading as he had consistently good at-bats and played terrific defense at both corners. Still, he is the cleanup man and he has to drive in runs when he gets the chance.

All of that brings us to Pedroia (1 for 17) and Ortiz (4 for 17), who went a combined 5 for 34 (a .147 average) with two RBIs (one each) and one run scored (Ortiz) during the ALDS. That simply cannot happen against Tampa. Of the two, Pedroia had the better at-bats against the Angels, particularly at the end of the series; Ortiz lacked discipline and seemed terribly impatient while being fed a steady diet of breaking balls.

Before someone points out that the Sox won the Angels series without contributions from Pedroia, Ortiz and Youkilis -- again, the latter is statistically deceiving -- remember that the Angels handed over the series as much as the Red Sox took it. At this stage of the playoffs, you can’t expect opponents to give you games.

Rather, you have to take hold of them yourselves.